1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus for transmitting and receiving image information, such as a facsimile apparatus or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In conventional facsimile apparatuses, particularly, in systems whereby an apparatus on the image reception side has recording sheets such as cut sheets or the like on which continuous recording cannot be performed, when an original longer than a standard length of recording sheet is transmitted, there may occur a case in which image information recorded on such a long original overflows the recording sheet. For prevention of this overflow, a method is known whereby the image data which could not recorded on the first recording sheet is divided and transmitted as a second set of image data.
However, in a facsimile apparatus having such a division sending function, the divided image data is recorded as the second set of image data from the portion just subsequent to the break in the first recording sheet. Therefore, it is difficult for an operator on the reception side to reproduce the complete form by coupling the recording sheets after the reception.
On the other hand, conventionally, there is known a facsimile apparatus whereby image data is stored in a memory and thereafter the image data is transmitted in accordance with the processing speed of the apparatus on the image reception side in consideration of the minimum transmission time or the like on the image reception side. However, if the image data exceeds the memory capacity, it cannot be communicated, so that a memory having a large capacity is needed in a conventional facsimile apparatus. In addition, in order to save the memory or reduce communication time, various kinds of compressing methods to compress the input image data are known. However, the compression of image data has the drawback that the amount of information contrarily increases with a high-density original, so that the execution of data compression cannot make the memory capacity as small as would be diserable.
Therefore, a conventional facsimile apparatus requires a memory which can sufficiently store the image data of one sheet of original by compressing it. Particularly, in a facsimile apparatus which performs the communication using, as a unit, the information of one sheet of original of a predetermined size, there is a risk that the portion of image data from an original of a high density image which overflows the memory cannot be transmitted or the communication itself ends as an error.